Being "Secretary"

Almost 2 years back, DH and I moved in to our newly built apartment, still smelling fresh of cement, paint and varnish. We were kind of proud of our nest, for it had been a one-year project for us that dominated most of our discussions and almost all our weekends. I was into the third trimester of pregnancy when we finally moved into the place, in spite of neighbors and friends cautioning us not to move houses during pregnancy (based on local popular belief that it is not good for the mom and baby). We were very sure we wanted to move, because of many reasons including space and the difficulty in moving post-baby (eeksss.. can’t imagine it) but the most important reason was that we wanted our little one to come home to this place from hospital.

The week before we moved in, we attended the meeting to form our building’s residents association, convened by our builder. When we went, we didn’t expect it to be anything more than a get-together. We had seen and heard of many apartment associations with bitter in-fights and wrangling over operational issues and water shortage solutions. Some of these battle tales would be enough to put Indian tribes to shame. But our new building had only 7 apartments, and we thought things should be pretty smooth. And they were, I should say, a bit too smooth for good. When we went into the meeting, an animated debate was on and we could sense heat in the air. The builder was trying to have a President, a Secretary and a treasurer elected for the building… and no one wanted to take any of these posts. Each owner was listing out the top 10 reasons why he or she could not take up the post.

4 of the owners said they were going to let out their apartments, and hence could not do much because of their physical absence. That seemed genuine, although that was also debated on. The other 2 also explained to all of us why they could not take anything up. DH quickly gave me an accusing glare – I had pulled him out of a Sunday afternoon nap into this! When it came to our turn, we explained our situation - A working couple, expecting a baby in 2 months. How could anyone dream of us taking up something?

But the Gods were not so merciful. All that the builder wanted to do was to form the association and wash his hands off. So the discussion went on and on.. until we (THEY) decided that the 3 families of owners who will continue to reside in the apartment, should take up the 3 posts. Apartment 7’s owner, being an elderly lady, jumped on to the President’s post, as that is the least demanding of the three. Apt 5 (working lady, with 2 kids and husband in the US) and Apt 6 (yours truly) looked at each other. She had despair in her eyes and said she was okay for either post, thereby giving me the choice (Ha ha!). We had lost a lot of peace and a neat amount of our own money when DH was the “Treasurer” of our previous building. Fresh from that memory, we decided we would take up the “Secretary” post. When we were asked whose name to put in, DH innocently volunteered my name since the President and Treasurer were ladies too. He's a Houdini when it comes to things like this.

And so I started my term as Secretary of the building. It was after we moved in that I realized the complexity of life as the Secretary. The Secretary was the jack-of-all-trades for the building, always expected to be on-call for crisis, complaints and general cribs. I, who have a tough time maintaining my personal documents, had to take charge of and maintain the building’s key documents including all those pertaining to the stand-by generator and intercom. My intercom would ring day in and day out – once it would be the security agency wanting to see me, another time it would be the corporation guy calling to collect tax. And then the apartment’s cleaning lady would show up at my door to complain that she was underpaid. I managed all this for a while since I was on maternity leave, waiting for my baby to be born.

And then, 5 days after due-date, after I had answered umpteen phone calls from friends and relatives calling to find out if I had gone to hospital, DD made her entry into this world. During the first few days of parenthood, I was struggling to get into some kind of routine and mainly, get some sleep in between her endless feed and nappy times. I would spend an hour crooning to DD, putting her to sleep, and heave a sigh of relief and lie down beside her. Exactly 5 mts later, when I would have just started sailing into dream world, the intercom would ring and the watchman would announce that there was no water in the sump and we would need to order water from outside. The ringing of the intercom would invariably wake DD up, leaving me fuming with anger and helplessness. To cut the long story short, I had some highly stressful moments that even made me rue the day we decided to move into our apartment.

Things have become better in the last 1.5 years. One of myTreasurer's employees (she runs her consulting firm) doubles up as the “Manager” for our building. I only need to provide the guidance. The initial teething problems of the building have also reduced. I still have strange issues to deal with, like this one. (Detour warning)

The Treasurer lady’s son has this penchant for rare pets. One day he decided he wanted to have a hen for a pet. And he brought in this beautiful spotted hen and let it romp around in the landscaped lawn and garden in our apartment’s common area. You can imagine the amount of furore it caused. There were murmurs and complaints from all over the place and I dutifully passed them on to the Treasurer, looking as objective and impersonal as I could. She said she did not have the courage to break her son’s heart. So I let the matter rest for a while. A few days later, things reached melting point when the restless hen clawed away at another neighbour’s new Toyota Corolla, resulting in visible scratches. The owner of the car was screaming murder (understandably) – the Treasurer saw sense and decided to deport the offending fowl to Pondicherry, her native place. She also agreed to compensate the damage to the car. Peace prevailed.

Many a time, the pressure of being a working mom with a toddler, and the additional burden of secretary-ship of a building gets to me. But one thing I cannot dispute is that this role has provided me with a perspective that I don’t get as part of my normal work or life. Just like being a parent has taught me so many things, including patience and humility. Many experiences that I would not have had and people I would not have met came my way – the fuming tenant unhappy with the money paid on building maintenance, the slimy-looking corporation tax-inspector expecting bribe, the inebriated owner of a security agency promising excellent services, and most of the residents who do not even bother to enquire, as long as everything is fine. Stuck that I am with this, I am now consoling myself saying that this is a way to connect to the real world and learn a thing or two from there :-)